nine outta ten IS bad?

i thought this would be an easy fix…

…and boy howdy, was i wrong!

as of this writing (9:38am on sunday, april 12th) i’m one for three on road worthy vehicles, which is one more than i had thursday. m has now developed a crack in a third rim, so i’ve got it holding together with fix-a-flat (which works remarkably well – kept the camaro going for the last two years i had it), so she’s the one i can take around right now.

betty has been sitting since august, but i think i finally have the parts to make her engine right (save for the oil leak, which will be addressed later) and then there’s also the headlight, the body work, etc. but if i can get the engine happy, that’s the main part of the battle from where i’m sitting as i can get her out of the carport and onto the road. more on that later…

and then there’s grey. poor grey. he had two valve stems dry rot, and his tires were in pretty bad shape as was, so i ordered a new(ish) set of runflats i got a steal on. he’d sat long enough his battery had died, i took it to get it charged, they found it defective, replaced it, i put the new one in, let him idle for an hour (tire sitch prevented driving him) and then he sat long enough after that for it to die again. i jumped him and got him in the carport only to discover that when his tires were done last they had torqued down the lugs so hard i couldn’t remove ’em. one started to strip, so i went to the other wheel that needed attention and got all five off. went BACK to the original one, and that one still wouldn’t release, so i went around and got the other four, though it was a bit of a struggle. i’ve now gone back to that one a few times to no avail, and even ordered a set of sockets specifically to remove stripped lugs but the layout of the wheel seems to prevent them from catching, so i ordered one that’s supposed to be thinner walled and i should know something by the time you see this.

(note from the day you see this – that socket didn’t work, and m’s tire problems worsened monday to where new wheels seem eminent…and i’ve been to “eh” to work on betty, which really needs to change…)